Architect Arc Club

I'm rebooting this as a positive influence from the MA Author's community to try and help foster some goodwill during this time of farmers, griefers, and bugs that make it so hard sometimes to give a care about the arcs holed up in the AE building.

The Goal

The goal of this club is to create plays and feedback on arcs that aren't getting played from authors who care about their arcs but aren't getting anything in return.

How to Join

It's simple, play at least two arcs a month and give feedback to the author. That keeps your arc(s) on the playlist. The more you participate, the more of your arcs get put on the list. Members can also nominate good, but not played arcs that they enjoyed to help fill out our list of arcs. You don't have to give detailed feedback, but please post here mentioning which arc(s) you played and briefly share what you thought of it. Also, please check if your arc is broken before posting it here.

Arc #508837 Whack a Mole! Incarnate Edition! Lambda Sector by @Bubbawheat - Neutral 50, 26 plays
Arc #29205 PENGUIN by @Tubbius - Hero 30-40, 186 plays
Arc #524278 The Astral Prison by @Zaphir - heroic, level 40+, 11 plays
Arc #115935 Cracking Skulls by @Flame Kitten (Coulomb2 alt account), Hero 1-14, 107 plays
Arc #525356 Agent of the OSS by @PW, Hero 20+, 11 plays
Arc #482914 Black as Midnight: Team Spirit by @Supafreak, Hero 50, 39 plays
Arc #514570 Terra Mystika: The Nexus by @Lord of Storms, Hero 40+, 10 plays
Arc #144416 Shadow of Grime Alley by @Fantastic Foe, Vigilante 45+, 49 plays
Arc #530511 Cat: It's What's For Dinner by @Interface, Villainous, 4 plays
Arc #534236 The Clockwork Angel @Spectreblade

Recommend some less-played arcs (100 plays or less) to get more variety into the club. I'm sure the authors will appreciate the plays. These arcs count for your 2 arcs per month.

Kill or Cure #459581 by @Samuraiko, Hero 40+, 25 plays
Legacy of a Rogue #459586 by @Night-Girl, Hero 30-35, 25 plays
Arc #517859: Crime is Art and Art is Crime, by @Twoflower - Hero 35+, 37 plays
Arc #271637: Welcome to M.A.G.I., by @Doctor Gemini - Hero 1-10, 33 plays

PENGUIN, 29205, by @Tubbius. It saw some major revisions about a couple months back or so, and I want to get it off on the right foot again!

Arc 517859: Crime is Art and Art is Crime, by @Twoflower. Newest arc. Feedback welcome; may need tweaking to the custom enemies, ferinstance. I can't make edits until the AE bug is fixed, mind you.

I'll get on playing two arcs soon!

Arc #271637: Welcome to M.A.G.I., by @Doctor Gemini. Looking for plays but feedback is always appreciated. Best if begun with a level 1 or 2, though it is set for level 1 to 10.

Arc #374644 - 'To Dream of Nothing', by @Zaphir.

I'm giving all of my old (and never-played :P) arcs a once-over, so I'm very open to suggestions -- all input welcome.

Looking forward to playing your arcs!


-- Z.

Played Welcome to M.A.G.I. I needed something to level my freshly rolled lowbie, and whaddya know, here's a lowbie arc!

Wexler's the first dread wizard I've seen in a trucker cap and sunglasses. I was highly amused by that.

Nice touch recoloring normal bosses -- gives them some style AND keeps it safe for lowbies, compared to using a full on custom. Wexler MIGHT be a bit too strong for an L1 who has poor accuracy, though... I was an L10 stalker, and had buildup, which cut through his defenses and laid him out instantly. I'd have to test with another AT fresh from tutorial to see if he's okay for others.

Spotted a few instances where a comma could've been inserted before a name. "I recognize you NAME" and "I was just going to call you NAME", for instance. Also, a few lines need closing periods appended, like "We'll... meet... again... NAME". Otherwise, no complaints, and those are hardly major complaints.

Liked the mystery unfolding, with enough evidence for and against Tim being a turncoat to keep things lively but not confusing. Good stuff.

I'll put Cracking Skulls (ID #115935), by @Flame Kitten up. Note that she's my wife and uses her account to host my arcs, so this is my arc, not me recommending someone else's arc (in case my sig didn't make that clear). She doesn't play CoH any more (beyond logging in every once in a while to claim tickets and let me respond to comments), so if you send me a comment in-game, I might not get it for a while.

I'm satisfied with plays - if you want to give feedback, I'm all ears, but I'm perfectly fine with a play that comes with minimal feedback.

Played PENGUIN (29205), by @Tubbius.

All I can say is WOW! As mentioned in his post earlier in the thread, he put a lot of effort into a revamp of the arc, and it really shows. His efforts have really improved the arc a great deal. The writing is quite good, the story flows well, the missions are built well and, if this was the first time I'd played this neat little opener to the Waddle trilogy, I'd probably be loading up part two right now (as it turns out, I've already played the rest of the trilogy).

A few "tweaks" I can suggest:

The "escort" in the first mission was cowering the moment I spotted him. I absolutely get why that emote is being used, but the first impression you automatically get upon seeing him is that the security guards are attacking him and you need to rescue him - not that he's using security to protect himself from *your* raid on the office. Maybe a more neutral emote would be better here (especially one that has a 'flashy' effect - like it that 'scanning with a tricorder' one is available - I actually missed him completely the first time through. I actually backtracked after completing the mission to see if I could find what the "optional" objective was tied to.)

I don't know if it was intentional or not, but Phineas' wife actually spawned in behind me (e.g. I was on floor 2 of the lab, and she showed up on floor 1). That was a little jarring (the lab map is pretty linear, so I'd cleared the area where she showed up, which gave a kind of "wait, what are you doing here *now*?" feel to the objective), but nothing serious.

Really a very fun, neat little arc!

Just played 'Whack a Mole! Incarnate Edition! Lambda Sector' (#508837). I've not played the previous Whack a Mole arc/s, so the concept was new to me.

Gameplay: I thought the navbar quest objective thing (like an arcade game's score display) was pretty ingenious. Map choice was good too, the flat layout works well for the second chain of objectives.

Design: I snickered (sometimes laffed, and once ROFL'd) along with the riffs on the LFG queue / Incarnate trials. The little quips about the "faceless zerg" aspect of LFG trial groups were amusing too. For the genuine LFG experience, you'd need proximity bombs halfway across the map occasionally exploding and redlining / killing the player... you can't really do that in AE though. /sadface

Story: Not really... but I didn't expect any

Overall: I think every 50 should play this arc once. We can probably all relate to the wonders of LFG and the incarnate system! (to be fair, my experiences with LFG were a bit more positive -- OTOH I am one of those people who doesn't "get" the point of the incarnate system, but this is a rant for another day)


-- Z.

Thanks for the play on PENGUIN, Coulomb! I agree about the placement of Melinda White in the final mission. There's not much I can do there; the placement options for her are a little fickle. I'll see what I can manage. Regarding Thad Melton in the first mission, I will say that it's possible to run the mish in about 30 seconds without unlocking him at all, so I can understand why you missed him.

But yeah, I'm pleased with PENGUIN overall at the moment. My major beef with it is that, to me, I see a few too many similarities to the later designed PENGUIN Part 2. Maybe I can come up with some way(s) to better distinguish them.

To Dream of Nothing (arc #374644)

I played a level 8 kat/fire brute.


Mission 1:

I found the premise of the mission to be something of a stretch. Heroes are losing their powers, OK, this is a normal trope. But even Natural origin heroes are affected? That strains my suspension of disbelief. It is more typical for characters like Batman and Manticore to survive these depowering events relatively intact due to being "ordinary humans".

Additionally, a depowering event would be extremely lethal for Positron because it would mean he's leaking antimatter (i.e. turned into an atomic bomb) and he definitely WOULD NOT be talking to newbie heroes in this situation. (See the CoH comic book by Top Cow - the very first story arc in this comic book has exactly this situation come up.) I know this is rather picky, but it will be a sticking point for people who are knowledgeable about the in-game continuity; you may want to consider a different contact.

Also, Positron knows people are losing powers so he sends us to investigate a professor who has disappeared? The connection here is very weak, IMHO. Sure, we are told he is a professor of superpowered studies, but I think the story would be stronger if you show that the professor is connected; for example, if your first mission was to generally investigate the "heroes being depowered" event, then the final clue of this mission pointed to this professor, leading into the 2nd mission being a "find the professor".

I like the mission begins clue and how detailed it is; the other clues I find during the mission are great quality also. I am curious as to why the Council in the mission weren't affected by the depowering event, but perhaps this is due to them being low level (which Positron said would exempt you).

Squad Leader Zovir's opening monologue is a HUGE wall of text (8 full lines on my chat tab). I find this unreadable during combat - I like reading dialog, yet I cannot actually read this until after Zovir is dead. Please make it shorter.

For some reason I had "2 terminals left to investigate" but the mission ended when I clicked on "Suspicious terminal". Possibly this is working as intended, but it struck me as odd. Clicking on it also seemed to spawn an ambush, and there was an ambush on Zovir also.... my brute was able to handle this, but it might be pretty scary for a squishy toon in the 5-10 range.

I think it is most convenient that the "anomaly" disables certain electronics (the Council's communications) and not others (the computer terminals and PDA). Will try to ignore this for the sake of the story.

Debriefing: a little disappointing that the Council plot is actually tangential to the anomaly. Seems to diminish the sense of accomplishment at the end of the mission; why was this mission necessary if it's not related to the main plot?


Mission 2:

What, this mission is against a Council vault, too? But Positron just said they didn't matter.... I think maybe reword mission 1's debriefing to be more consistent with this mission. Right now I feel some sense of whiplash. Also the line of "I am not sending you in there alone -- some of your peers will assist you" -- why does he feel it necessary to give me reinforcements this mission, but not the previous mission? He does mention "chaos on the streets", but darn it, I'm a superhero, I should be able to handle that?

I clicked the Nictus Vault Manifest which says I found some documents, but I did not get a clue for it ... it sounded like maybe I should, though. (Later: I eventually got some info about this in the mission end clue...mechanics of this seem a little clunky though.)

[M2] The broken machine : how do I know the Council had routine inspections of these? It's not like the Council follows government safety regulations. (Later: I find out that they have routine inspections in the "mission end" clue, but this doesn't really work due to the order these clues are found in.)

[M2] Logs from the Vault : this is a lengthy clue that "tells" the reader what they find, but I think it would be a stronger clue if you wrote it like an actual excerpt from the documents.

Debriefing: I think "Family Marcone" should perhaps be "Marcone Family". It seems oddly inconsistent that Positron would be very pedantic in the briefing (giving me an excerpt from a scientific dissertation, even), but then talk about being a "gambling man" in the debriefing (highly unscientific). (Admittedly very nitpicky, take this with a grain of salt.)


Mission 3:

I think "Nictus" should be "Nicti" (plural) in the briefing. Most of this briefing is recapping what happened so far, but a lot of it is weak speculation which Positron admits by using the word "probably" for most of his theory of what's going on. He never actually tells you what the mission is before asking "Are you ready?"

He does explain some of it in the send-off message. "The three of you" I imagine is meant to be me and the 2 heroes introduced in mission 2, but does not make sense if I'm not solo; suggest rephrasing to "Your team". Positron also mentions "Nihil" which is the first time this name is mentioned as far as I can tell; how does he know the Nictus's name?? Also, why is "Nihil", who is established as a highly powerful Nictus, only weakened and not completely depowered, like apparently Positron is? (Sorry to keep harping on this, but having the depowering anomaly be logically inconsistent is really bothering me.)

Inside the mission I have "3 students to find (optional)" ... no students were mentioned before this, why am I supposed to be finding them? I'd either have them mentioned in the briefing, or not have them show up in the nav tool at all and the player just stumbles over them. "Find Agent BR-008" and "Defeat the Council leader" being separate objectives is also somewhat spoilerific -- my assumption would've been BR-008 was the leader otherwise.

I found "Memoirs 11.16" in a suspicious barrel. Why a barrel? A desk or file cabinet would be more typical? More memoirs found on an analyzer and a corpse. OK, so the 12 memoirs are a single narrative divided into 12 parts among 12 different glowies. Personally, I find this mechanic a little tedious (12 glowies is a lot to find, and 12 clues is a lot of text, and since I find them in a random order I keep having to search my clue journal for which one is new, which is made particularly difficult because all the clues have nearly identical names) but your mileage may vary.

I found several corpses which gave "Memoir" clues; but I kinda think I should also get some info about how the person died, who they were, etc.

I find one crate which is a destroyable object when most other crates have been clickies so far. Seems a little weird.

Found Sigfrid, his opening monologue is pretty long too, making it hard to read in combat; though it's only 5 lines this time.

When I rescue Agent BR-008 the game text says "The agent sighs once and breathes no more", but actually, his in-game model stands up and looks alive. Can you make him fall down or something? Also the clue starts off "As you interrogated the dying Council agent" but it is easy to miss the game text saying that BR-008 dies, so you may want to repeat the fact that it's BR-008 that is dying in the clue text. Initially I thought it might be talking about one of the guards I just killed. Also, this seems an implausibly long and coherent monologue for someone who is seconds from death. If BR-008 had time to say all this, wouldn't a real hero have spent this time getting him medical attention rather than listening to the monologue? Consider having the hero just take BR-008 prisoner and have BR-008 reveal all this info after being captured?


Mission 4:

In the briefing, apparently no ship or airplane can catch Nihil's ship or even see it or approach it ... except for the one I'm on? Because I have powers? I'm sorry, but I found this really hard to believe.

Rescued the two allies which spawned "Nictus leader" as an objective; Blackshift ended up spawning near the mission entrance (behind me) and I ended up searching the whole ship twice before I found him. Possibly this was a vagary of the random spawn, but it would be better if this boss could be spawned later in the ship than the allies.

Defeating Blackshift spawned "leader of the thralls" as an objective. I searched for and defeated Janus, which spawned "Shadow Cyst" as an objective. Found and defeated the cyst, which spawned and ambush and also Nihil. Nihil spawned behind me again, requiring more backtracking (sigh!). The actual appearance of Nihil was a little less intimidating than I would've expected, but makes some sense based on him really being a possessed person. Having an EB in a level 5-10 arc is a little scary but it's the end boss and you have allies, so I think that's probably OK.

I guess defeating Nihil also ended the depowering anomaly? The souvenir says there was a machine that Nihil destroyed out of spite, but I didn't really get that from the gameplay. I think maybe I would've liked to see an actual machine to destroy?


Overall:

I felt like the "depowering anomaly" was not very well thought out; the way it was handled did not seem logically consistent within the arc (some things depowered, some things not) and the plot thread was not tightly woven with the main story, which appears to be the possession and madness of Dr. Patrick/Nihil. You may want to consider cutting it (I know it was for the Aeon Challenge, but it felt really distracting from the main story). I found gameplay to be tedious in places (12 glowies/12 memoirs, also massive backtracking in final mission). I did like most of the writing but felt the dialog was overly verbose in a few places. The supporting characters were interesting but were portrayed like pickup team members, could use some development to make you care more about them.

I gave the arc 3 stars. I hope some of this helps you out!

Here is an arc I could really use feedback on:


Crisis at Talos Towers (arc id 518075) H43-49
A Rikti dropship has struck the Talos Towers, causing massive structural damage and setting them on fire. First responders attempted to evacuate the building, but have themselves been trapped by the fire and debris. They need a hero. Can you help?



Author's notes:

I originally wrote this arc for the MA SuperTeam's 9/11 tribute day in 2010. It is very short (1 mission only). I ended up unpublishing it earlier on in order to write a story for "Iron Architect", but now that you can have more arc slots, I decided to re-work it and republish it.

The debate about farm vs story arcs has driven me to attempt a farm/story arc. Consequently, I've reworked this arc somewhat to make it more farm-y, so it can be a story-oriented farm. However, I'm concerned that straddling the difference is making it both a weaker farm and a weaker story, so could use feedback on improving both aspects.

Some particular problems I have:

* I really don't have much time for character development or clues, since it's a single mission on a small map. But I would like more, if possible. Maybe this is OK based on the scenario (a rescue operation), but could use feedback or ideas on this.

* Running my fire brute on x8 I hit the ticket cap long before completing the mission. I see most farm missions have a glowy that autocompletes the mission in these cases, but I am having trouble coming up with a way to make this fit the story. Perhaps "Call the Fire Department"? But it seems rather unheroic not to rescue all the hostages.

* I have a mix of fire and non-fire damage which admittedly makes it less optimized for farming, but I like it this way, so am reluctant to change it.


Feel free to 1-star it if you hate farms or hate non-farms or whatever. But would like some constructive feedback if you do.

Wow, thanks for the exhaustive review and criticism! I chose this arc because I consider it my weakest work, and I'm trying to find ways to improve it. It was also made when I haven't yet realized a few important (IMO) things:
- "less is more" -- I definitely agree about overall verbosity, and will try to cut down on that.
- "show, don't tell" -- I tried to tell a parallel story in M3, and it doesn't work out so well unless the player hunts down every glowie and spends ~10 mins reading after the mission.
- "ambushes aren't a good tension-builder" -- I'll probably keep the ambushes where the player is guaranteed to have 2 allies and scrap the rest.

The basic premise of this arc (and I think one of your biggest complaints) was the global power net talked about in the "Origin of Power", and how Nihil was able to manipulate it at a primal level... affecting all beings who have been in contact with the net for a longer time (ie. "not newbies"), and conveniently excluding the Nictus. Now that I think about it, that unified power theory thing doesn't really make a lot of sense. In my defense, I was young (a whole 2 years) and impressionable then...! Good call about Positron though... just gotta find someone who's all smart and sciencey and stuff.

Minor notes re the individual missions:
M1
- There are 3 terminals to start, and the 4th one pops up after the Zovir fight. I put them in the same collective objective group, so if you missed an optional terminal, you'll have "2 terminals" at that point. I'll probably just put the 2nd terminal in its own group.

M2
- Agreed about the clues, they're kind of in a vacuum. Will redo them.
- The two allies were working on their own 'leads', but Posi found that the character's lead is much more promising/important, so he reassigned them. They're sort of meant to feel like PUG members, minus the 'omg hael me' stuff

M3
- The journals, sad as it is, probably have to go. A System Shock 2-style email/voicelog setup just doesn't work with COH's clue system.
- BR-008 originally did the lie-down animation; problem is, a rescue captive event always ends with the captive running off. I had to make him an ally, which switches him into the stand stance. No better way to handle this, unfortunately.

M4
- The placement was a last-day [literally] kludge, since for some unknown reason 'back' boss spawns bugged out half the time, making Nihil nowhere to be found, so I could only use front/middle.

Looking forward to comments from others as well -- don't hold back, I can take it.


-- Z.

Arc Played: Whack a Mole! Incarnate Edition! Lambda Sector #508837 by @Bubbawheat
Character: Dr. Gemini - L50 Inv/SS Tank

Overall: Very enjoyable romp. Loved the Incarnate Trial humor that I understood (not having the opportunity to play the trials, a couple of things went over my head). I did learn on first entering (and having forgotten to adjust my settings first) not to run it at /x4 (multiple psionics vs. inv always turns out badly, but it did let me see the "mission failed" dialogues). Loved the video game feel of the nav bar as well.

Arc Played: PENGUIN #29205 by @Tubbius
Character: Magikman - L36 WP/EM Tank

Specific Feedback
Mission 1:
The nav bar quest "Be escorted to Dr. Simon's Desk (optional)" I found to be rather confusing. I didn't really have any choice about being accompanied unless I decided to outrun his assistant. Also, I didn't get why he was being detained by the guards.

Mission 3:
I'm fighting some snow beasts and hear these punching sounds nearby, turn in that direction, and see the back of a giant penguin who appears to be laying the smack down on a couple of snow critters. That gave me a great laugh. Awesome use of animations.

The second reporter spawned in directly behind me after I rescued the first, which was a little jarring. Although, as someone who really hates backtracking through a map, I liked it happening right there. Maybe you could add some dialogue to her such as "Where are you taking me?" that could give the impression that they were bringing her to her husband just as you rescued him.

Overall: This was a good story that makes me want to play the next installment to see what happens. (If it were not for it being the first weekend I'm playing since I21 launch, I'd be doing that next). None of the things mentioned above took away from the story. This is definitely going on my list of alternate arcs to the dev content.

Well, I hadn't planned to play a third arc today but I had a lowbie needing an adventure so....

Arc Played: Cracking Skulls #115935 by @Flame Kitten
Character: Dr. Ravenwing - L8 Dark/Dark Defender

Specific Feedback
Mission 1:
The people looking to buy drugs were are listed under the group "Mystics". Just seemed kind of odd.
Good use of customs for the drug-enhanced citizens.

Mission 2:
Loved the look of the necrodyne enhanced customs. Especially well done was how much deader the Lt.'s looked compared to the minions.
"Agent" Skully! LMAO. Good dialogue for him too.

Mission 3:
Loved the PPD spawn after defeating the boss. Gives the "feel" that the PPD are actually coming in to clean up as Frietag promised.

Overall: Great arc with a well-done story. Only issues I had were two extremely minor nitpicks, one I listed above, and the other was that in several places in mission dialogues the highlighted text was the same color as the titles. That just bugs me, but not enough to detract from the arc at all. Another one for my alternate arc list.

Unfortunately I have played this arc before, just so long ago I forgot about it, so I did not do Coulomb much good.

Played Crisis at Talos Towers by @PW, and I do agree that it tries a little too hard to be a midline between a farm and a story arc. As a farm, I really enjoyed it though. I've only played one or two other farms and got bored very quickly. I liked the variation in the enemies with the DE Granite mixed in there as well as the rescues. I did hit the ticket cap right before the end running only +1/x3, and I also thought a lot more could be done for the story. It would be nice to have the ability to know more about the civilians and officers rescued, did Timmy's parents make it out ok? And I also thought that the ending was a little bit too happy compared to the event it's based on. But aside from those points, I rather enjoyed it. Tweets made while playing the arc below.

#CoHMA Playing #518075 Crisis at Talos Towers by @PW, Hero 43-49, 0 plays for the Architect Arc Club
#CoHMA Contact is the police dispatcher and there has been a Rikti Warship crash into the Wentworth Trade Center.
#CoHMA Doing a WTC tribute arc is a tough challenge in #CoH but so far this arc gets it right.
#CoHMA inside are a bunch of fire enemies and a rocky falling debris. Also, the arc is billed as a farm with story.
#CoHMA The Falling Debris DE still spawn their appropriately named "rubble".
#CoHMA First rescue is a kid named Timmy. His bio says he got separated from his parents.
#CoHMA As a farm, it does feel a little bit on the easy side. But it's still a farm I think I could get behind. I like the variation w/ DE.
#CoHMA It seems counter-intuitive to have lead-outs in a farm, but it doesn't make sense any other way for the story.
#CoHMA And I hit the ticket cap
#CoHMA No clues during the whole thing. This time - makes sense for the farm, but would help to know more of the rescued's stories.
#CoHMA Bah! Unreadable dark blue text.
#CoHMA Arc had a happy ending, felt a little too happy. Could use a little gravitas. But otherwise enjoyable.

Thanks for the run of PENGUIN! About Thad Melton escorting to Dr. Simons' desk: it's the only way I could get it to work right. He's not being held prisoner by the guards; he's cowering behind them as the heroes come busting in.

Played Arc #517859: Crime is Art and Art is Crime by @Twoflower on a level 34 thug/pain MM (which meant I had to resummon my pets every mission /cry) at 0x2 with bosses on.

Gameplay: I hit the ticket limit in M2 and M3... there may be a stricter ticket limit patched in with I21, though. Liked the optional objectives in M1 (and the way they were handled). More arcs need to do this, including my own! /shifty_eyes

Design: I gotta say, I dig the sparkly art cop look. The contact's voice is pretty neat too, I especially liked the busy text for M3. I spotted a few typos - sent them along in the ingame comment.

Story: Good overall premise, especially the cackling-villain-style finale. Minor nit - Sabine's dialog is a bit terse with abrupt full stops (esp. in the intro), but that may be just for style -- in that case, it's fine.

Customs: Liked them a lot design-wise. Power-wise, I think the astronaut's no-dying power (moment of glory?) is a bit much on a LT. The greek archer's blinding arrow is halfway there, but that one's counterable with yellows. The bosses were surprisingly tough, especially Teddy... his self-rez is brutal!

Overall: Great arc, though it may be a bit unforgiving on squishies.


-- Z.

And now for the last arc-with-less-than-10-plays:

(Preface: I don't play farms normally, though my SG had some fun playing an all-boss farm with some relatively tough customs and amusing dialogue back in the day -- it was a good way to gauge our power level. Of course now that arc is all-but-unusable with the xp nerfs on custom groups without the full minion/lt/boss setup. Sic transit gloria mundi.)

Played Arc #518075: Crisis at Talos Towers by @PW on the same MM as in the prev. post (level 34 thug/pain).

Gameplay: First spawn is *very* close to the door, but I was able to summon my pets before all hell broke loose. Was a very frenzied encounter actually, since I triggered a captive and a rescue objective with the attached ambushes right at the entrance to the first room. Later on I was one-shotted by a Conflagration (LT, I think) at 80%ish hp with my pets on guard mode - didn't see that coming! I hit the ticket cap at the very end (mission completion bonus).

Design: Much more subdued cop look on the contact, quite the culture shock after Twoflower's arc! I kid. Map choice is a bit weird with the demonic/arsonist paraphernalia, but I can't think of a better map.

Story: Minimalistic, but that's the intention as I understand it; and it does have that frenzied 'go go go!' atmosphere. I'd probably add pseudo-glowies with interaction text only (no clue text, it'd break the flow). Stuff that'd enhance the drama or add depth to the zone: a whiteboard from a company meeting, a hastily-opened safe, bits from the Rikti dropship (maybe a bomb the player has to disarm/blow up), etcetera. Maybe add a time limit?

Ideas for the 'egress': You could have $name call on other heroes / etc to help rescue the hostages while $heshe valiantly holds up the only cross-beam that's preventing the entire building from collapsing (sub in other possibilities depending on player's archetype/powersets) a'la Sabin and the collapsing house in Final Fantasy 6. It's silly, but hey - comic book plot.

Overall: I liked it, though it was mean on my non-IO'd mastermind (I died! Twice! ). Will give it a whirl again later to see the changes.


-- Z.

#518075: Crisis at Talos Towers by @PW
Used my incarnate Energy/Energy Brute, set to 0/x5 (what I often use when I'm trying to balance rewards with my desire to be able to advance through missions at a decent pace to keep the story going).

I did this one differently than what most of my arc club plays will be like - since the arc is quite short overall, and I wanted to replicate the 'farm' experience as much as possible, I played this one three times.

I've started with my impressions as I was actually playing the arc (several times). My conclusions are below, and do get somewhat repetative considering what's up here.

My opinions (impressions after the first play through):

Lose the Storm Elemental bosses - technically, endurance drain might be a pain for a farmer using Fire Aura (not that I really care), but for me it was the fact that it's kind of a cramped map so even zoomed out I often end up 'zoomed in' and they really kind of block my view that bothers me.

You simply need fewer details to make this work better; the map choice is great, but the low ticket max makes it too east to hit the cap *with what you've got so far.* The trick is give the player the option to 'blitz' the mission to stay under the cap, or clear it if they'd rather trade tickets for XP.

Reduce the number of escorts to one, and keep him as 'Timmy' in the front of the map.

Put the officers, who only need to be rescued, not escorted, in the middle. Maybe a flashy animation to mark them ... so a dedicated farmer can spot them easily.

Put a non-combat 'ally' in the back. Have the ally tell you something like 'If you can only repair/start the high volume sprinker systems that'll curb the tide enough for the fire department to safely enter and rescue anyone else trapped in here.' Since you've got an ally with you (who is really someone you are rescuing who is trying to help you out a bit), it does make sense for you to be 'carrying them out of the building' (in the debriefing) once the situation is under control.

Second Try:

I tried to leave the escorts in place until all three were freed, then backtrack to the entrance, picking 'em up on the way. Slight improvement to my time to complete, but still hit the ticket cap.

From the story standpoint: it's more interesting and engaging than a straight farm arc, that's or sure.

From the farm standpoint: it's just not as efficent as it could be. After this second playthrough, I'm still convinced it boils down to the number of objectives, since the point is to have ambushes (it's technically trying to be an ambush farm, after all), but the number of escorts/rescues tied to ambushes easily puts you over the ticket cap, since the map is small. I still *like* the idea of needing to (strategically) work through the map, hitting only objectives that make sense, while having an in-story reason to ignore stuff that doesn't (after all, why would you be fighting 'natural hazards' that aren't really threatening anyone?). Actually makes the game play somewhat more interesting than a farm.

But the fact that 'smart play' doesn't let you find a solution to the "simultaneous highest XP and tickets per unit time equation" - it's one or the other - is something that could be worked on. Frankly, it should be easy to achieve, and still preserve the story aspect of the arc, with a reduction in the number of objectives, and slight modifications to the mechanics of how those objectives are handled.

Third Try:

This was the "story" run - like the first one, when I had an escort, I immediately took them back to the entrance. I also read the descriptions of the creatures, and would have read clues, if they were present.

As a basis for comparison, I also ran the 'Fire Cyborgs' farm three times. No need to bore anybody with the details, and the results didn't surprise me in the least (although I have no doubt they'll be less now that rezzing foes no longer grant XP after they 'get back up').

Fire Cyborgs:
Run 1: 296208 inf/minute (forgot to track tickets/minute)
Run 2: 407433 inf/minute and 256 tickets/minute
Run 3: 516864 inf/minute and 577 tickets/minute (the big jump is because I used the clickie to end the mission once I was up to about 750 tickets)

Average: 406,835 inf/minute and 416 tickets/minute

Crises at Talos Towers:
Run 1: 126,230 inf/minute and 52 tickets/minute
Run 2: 138,548 inf/minute and 56 tickets/minute
Run 3: 114,862 inf/minute and 44 tickets/minute

Average: 126,547 inf/minute and 51 tickets/minute (To be fair, while obviously significantly lower than a true farm, this is higher than what I normally get playing through standard developer content 'as intended' - which usually amounts to between 60,000 - 90,000 inf/minute from defeats at my current settings.)

My hypothesis (sorry, I do end up repeating a lot of what I say above, which is really me just re-affirming my impressions from the earlier playthroughs): A "good" 'story farm' should be set up to have an interesting (or at least somewhat engaging) story the first time through (complete with clues, etc.), but be set up in such a way as to facilitate speeding through the mission (and completing it) for increased rewards as many subsequent times as you care to play it. Key to this is making sure there's a way to finish the mission when you are about halfway to the ticket cap, and to minimize things that add to the play time.

So with that in mind:

From the standpoint of story, I agree 100% that for a 'heroic rescue' it is pretty unrealistic to make rescuing trapped citizens (and police officers) optional, but escorts take up time. Right now, the arc is set up so that you are getting everyone out while in constant peril from the natural hazards of the fire - it's realistic to assume the officers could make it out okay on their own, but not the civilians (and the arc *doesn't* have you just leaving the civilians to their own devices, which is good). But if you could somehow neutralize the danger sufficiently, you can simply assume you and whomever is accompanying you could then exit the building while not under imminent danger. That's where I was getting my ideas above:

Have Timmy as the only actual escort - the ambushes tied to him are in front anyway, so it's pretty much one continuous fight (which is keeping with the farm aspect of this).

Have the two officers be 'middle rescues' (and make them optional, so that after you've played the arc once for story, you have the option of skipping them entirely when you are 'farming' - knowing full well that activating the 'automated fire control' - see below - will be enough to save them anyway. Ironically, I'd lose the ambushes, and if possible, add an animation that makes it easier to find them and 'skip' all the other spawns if you choose (it isn't totally unrealistic you'd be ignoring 'natural hazards' that are not directly threatening the lives of the people trapped inside in favor of those that are, so an easy way to locate the trapped officers would be very helpful). Since the ambushes seem to spawn in the front room, and run to the middle, they really only seem make the mission last longer.

Then you push forward to the final room, which has an 'ally' instead of an escort. The ally tells you the ship impact knocked out the 'automated fire control' systems (or whatever), but if you can repair them, it will really help your efforts to get everyone out safely. (Either I just aggroed another group, or it looks like the ambush spawns for the rear details also show up to the rear of the map, but a bunch of ambushes tied to freeing the 'ally' might work well). If you make the 'fire control' system a glowie (that isn't insta click, like in most farms), you'd still need to clear out enough around you to be able to 'activate' it without interruption, but then the mission ends safely (and of course, you can either stay and clear more stuff out, or leave and restart the mission).

Like I said, alterations along those lines could potentially make the arc cater to both story and farm - play through once for story, and then later (and much faster) for rewards.

I agree with others, though, that to really boost the story side of the arc, you need several clues (which are easy enough to just ignore on farm runs), and I actually thought some more robust descriptions of the mobs would be good. To be honest, I was wondering if Rikti mutagens that had leaked into the building were giving the rubble, fires, and other hazards an 'unnatural life.' Kind of a silly idea, sure, but something like that might add more to the story.

But as it stands, the story side needs more story, and the mission design needs more of an 'option' to facilitate blitzing through the mission quickly. Hopefully these suggestions helped.

Normally, I'm really trying to shy away from doing my 'scoring' nonsense for arc club, but here I think it was warranted, since I really wanted to try to go for an honest rating for the arc, as it currently stands.

Score: 2.637 (So as it stands, both the in-game and my 'official' rating would be 3 stars)

Some excellent feedback so far. Thanks very much for the constructive criticism!

I agree that in its current form, exceeding the ticket cap so quickly but having no way to instantly end the mission is hideously inefficient from a farming standpoint. Up to now I've been balking on adding a "click this glowy to complete the mission" objective (as seems traditional for farms) because it felt unheroic to not rescue the civilians, but I like Coulomb's suggestion of making it linked to rescuing someone, which ties much better into the story. I'll see if I can make that happen.

I like the "lead civilian out" objectives from a story standpoint, but you're right that it's a time waster from the farm standpoint. Will look into this.

I'm not sure adding a whiteboard glowy would add much but I like the idea of an unexploded Rikti bomb to defuse.

I agree the Storm Elementals tend to obscure vision, but truthfully I like this effect since I want to convey a confused, smoke-filled environment filled with dangerous hazards.

Everyone noted I had no clues, and I agree that I'd like some clues; but I was at a loss for what clues would make sense in this mission, since it's really not an investigation, it's a rescue. With the suggestions I've gotten I think I could perhaps add a clue pointing the player to Coulomb's sprinkler system, and maybe another one for Zaphir's Rikti bomb.

I'm going to cogitate on the feedback some more, and then I'll see what I can do to spiff things up. No worries on the low ratings -- they're totally deserved. Considering some people routinely rate farm arcs with 1 star, and others routinely rate story-oriented arcs with 1 star, I recognize that there is a steep hill to climb when making an arc that tries to please both camps. It might prove impossible, even. Nevertheless, it's an interesting challenge.